An ESPN report surfaced on Sunday morning that puts Doug Pederson’s future with the Philadelphia Eagles in doubt. So if the Eagles do end up with a head coaching search on their hands this offseason, it begs the question …
Who the heck would want this job?
Sure, there are only 32 NFL head coaching jobs in the world, so it’s still a coveted position. But if you look at the other openings, frankly, those are better situations. If I were a top coaching candidate, I’d think twice before joining the Eagles.
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They’re an absolute mess.
Sure, maybe Jeff Lurie would be able to show off that Super Bowl LII banner as proof that the organization hasn’t always been like this. But that feels like decades ago. If a new head coach walks into the NovaCare Complex in 2021, he’s walking into a franchise in shambles.
The Eagles are a mess right now for several reasons:
- Howie Roseman seems invincible. The Eagles are willing to possibly move on from their head coach and from their quarterback but the guy responsible for putting together a 4-11-1 roster with repeated failures in the draft is made of Teflon. And while Roseman spoke five years ago about learning how to become better at the relationship part of his job, there are plenty of folks who have found him hard to work alongside.
- The Eagles might not have their franchise quarterback and if they have their quarterback it’s either a 28-year-old guy who regressed in 2020 unlike any player we’ve ever seen or an unproven second-rounder who has four starts under his belt.
- Perhaps some head coach would relish the opportunity to come in and fix Carson Wentz. Coaches always think they can fix players. But this particular player reportedly hasn’t gotten along with his current coach — who once had him playing at an MVP level — to the point where he’s expected to ask for a trade. There are also fair questions to ask about how open to coaching Wentz really is.
- The Eagles don’t have young talent. We mentioned Roseman already but if the Eagles get a new coach, that coach will come in and be handed a roster that features aging veterans as the best players. Yeah, Fletcher Cox, Brandon Graham, Jason Kelce, Lane Johnson, Brandon Brooks, Darius Slay and Rodney McLeod are good players. But they’re older players.
- The Eagles have a clear lack of young talent for a young coach to grow with. Aside from Miles Sanders, Dallas Goedert and a few others, the Eagles’ failures in the draft are apparent in their product on the field.
- The Eagles also a lack of cap space. In fact, the Eagles are staring at a cap situation with estimates of them being over $70 million. While Roseman is skilled in this area and will be able to make the Eagles cap compliant, he won’t be able to overcome draft shortcoming by spending money in free agency as he’s done in the past. So it’s hard to expect long-term solutions in the draft and there also aren’t short-term solutions coming in free agency.
- And perhaps the biggest reason for coaches to avoid the Eagles: The owner might have a meddling problem. And if you take this job, you’d be replacing a guy who won a Super Bowl and was out three years later. How could you possibly feel secure with your own job? The sheer fact that the Eagles are batting around these franchise-altering decisions for this long is worrisome. That indecisiveness typically doesn’t happen with well-run teams.
Overall, the Eagles have been a winning franchise. They won a ton under Andy Reid, they won under Chip Kelly and they reached the ultimate high with Pederson just a few years ago. So maybe there is a winning culture in those walls, but all I see now is dysfunction.
NFL
I took a look at the other head coach openings and I’d put the Eagles at or near the bottom of the list.
The Jets have been a disaster but they have the No. 2 pick and a ton of cap space. The Chargers have a young franchise quarterback. The Jaguars are about to have their franchise quarterback with that No. 1 pick and they are expected to have the most cap space in the NFL. The Texans are a dysfunctional mess too but if the new head coach convinces Deshaun Watson to calm down, you have your QB. And at least the Falcons and Lions are bringing in a new general manager too.
None of this means the Eagles won’t end up with a good coach if they move on from Pederson. In fact, Lurie has a great track record when it comes to hiring coaches.
But you could make a serious argument that if the Eagles’ head coaching position becomes available, it’s the worst of the bunch.
What a mess.
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